More Enterprise Content Management Consolidation Ahead In 'O4

With nearly every tech vendor trying to stake a claim in enterprise content management, many expect the flurry of M&A activity in that sector to continue in 2004.
IBM Software waged a one-company buying spree in recent months to bolster its content and data management portfolio, most recently buying up Green Pasture for an undisclosed sum. That was IBM's third content-management-related purchase in 12 months, according to Janet Perna, general manager of data management for IBM Software, Somers, N.Y.
There was a litany of other deals as well in 2003. Interwoven bought MediaBin and iManage, OpenText acquired Gauss and IXOS. EMC, in its quest to stake its own claim in information life-cycle management, bought Documentum in October.
"There has been a trend for IBM, Documentum and others to broaden out--organizations want a single framework to deal with all their unstructured content, documents, images, digital assets and the like," said Ted Warzecha, analyst with The Meta Group. Read.